Sprint Invents New "Concerned Department"

By cwaltersFebruary 6, 2008

It’s good to know Sprint is taking your concern very seriously these days. When Peter tried to get a corporate discount for his company, Sprint told him sure, then told him no because he already had a discount with them. He wrote back and pointed out that he was told the corporate discount would be in addition to the existing one, at which point he received the following helpful email.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your reply.

I apologize for the inconvenience that you have faced due to discount on the sero plan.

The provided information in the previous interaction is correct that sero is already a discounted plan so, no discount can be added with this plan.

However I have forwarded your concern to the concerned department. If some resolution will be there then we will be happy to inform you.

Vicky R.
E-Care
Sprint

Funny trivia: Peter also confessed to us that he’s an employee of Comcast. Please do not hold that against him—he even wrote, “and yes I see some irony in the situation.”(Thanks to Peter!)

You need a different site to get discounts like that – the one I used to get my SERO discount is slipping my memory right now, but it was called something like a national volume discount. There’s a unique URL you have to use to sign up.

Maybe try calling a store and ask them? Don’t let them know you have SERO, though.

If it works, it’s great. My University of Maryland 15% discount pays the taxes on my plan, so my cell bill is 31 bucks a month for 500 anytime, 7pm nights and weekends, and unlimited text and data…which is awesome until something goes wrong, because Sprint CSRs are outsourced from the seventh circle of hell.

SERO is already a stellar deal. On their SERO website the policy clearly states that because it’s already discounted, corporate volume discounts do not apply (SERO is better than the corporate volume discount, anyways)

@Blueskylaw: If the terms of the 50% off sale was “Cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts, or coupons”, then yes.

However, in the guy’s defense, after briefly scanning over the terms and conditions of the SERO plan on the sprint website, I can’t see where it says that you are not allowed to combine any other discount. there’s just the disclaimer under the general terms & conditions that the offer may not be available everywhere or combinable with other discounts. I think the terms and conditions I’m looking at might just be the default terms and conditions on all plans.

This email was created by the same marketing dept who saw the rough cut of M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie and named it “The Happening”, because apparently in the movie characters say “There seems to be an event happening” and “It’s happening”. In other words, the company Obvious Bullshit LLP.

@DeltaPurser: Unless it’s an Indian named Vicky, I guarantee you that someone named “Vicky” didn’t write this e-mail at all. I recognize the grammatic ideosynchracies immediately. This e-mail came from India.

@Coder4Life: I got the same message when I tried to get the discount yesterday. The SERO message boards are filled with people who’ve gotten corp discounts on top of their SERO plan, as well as 6PM nights and weekends and first incoming minute free. They didn’t rip anyone off, they did it by wheeling and dealing with customer service – I don’t see why that’s a problem.

@BugMeNot2: In addition, it’s not so much “penny pinching bullshit complaints.” Trying to get a corporate discount is as simple as typing in your work e-mail address on the website. Then they told him the discount was approved (as they did with me), THEN said no. It’s not like he got notarizations and spent hours on the phone to get an additional 12% off. Maybe you’re just bitter because you’re paying $110 a month for the same plan on Verizon?

inconvenience that you have faced due to discount…
The provided information in the previous interaction…
If some resolution will be there

I agree with @humphrmi – while “Vicki” does have a pretty good grasp of North American English (only one misplaced indefinite article, for example), it’s pretty clear that she actually speaks Indian English.

Employer discounts don’t stack with the Sero plan. Even so, Sero is the best deal around, so don’t feel bad.

The humorous wording of the email from the Sprint rep is just the product of Filipino out-sourced customer service. They speak English in the Philippines but the vast cultural differences between them and Sprint customers in the US make the quality of communication poor. This (along with the horrid service in the retail stores) is the number one thing that needs to be fixed if Sprint is going to turn it around.

@ARCH05 & @BONZOMBIEKITTY I guess you’re right it does make sense if you look at it as an adjective its just one of those things that when read at 3 in the morning it just looks funny. no harm no foul I guess I’m just easily amused (OHHHH shinny object)

As for the discount on top of SERO I thought I’d try and submit my account to see if I could score the discount as it would be icing on the cake, but yeah I really can’t complain as $30 a month for 500 mins + unlimited data and txt is pretty nice. I was just curious why they went back and forth on giving me the discount and why it took so long to finally say no. (As some other folks pointed out there’s no real language saying the discounts don’t “stack” and even some folks are reporting they have had success…)

Lastly I highly suggest everyone check in with the HR departments at work to see if there is a corp discount for your carier, there are a surprisingly HIGH number of companies (including schools, associates, non-profits, etc) that offer discounts. Or a good staring place might be the following links: